𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐍 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐒 // George Weasley

𝟓𝟗. 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭

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The sound of many clattering books made Elle wince as Angelina swing around. She'd wished now that she'd alerted the girl about the noise on the stairs earlier. However now she was too late.

Alicia stood like a statue by the door way. Her books were discarded and she stared at Angelina with an expression of complete and utter shock.

"What did you just say?" Her voice quavered slightly and Elle couldn't tell what thoughts were swirling through her mind at this moment.

"I um... nothing" Angelina stuttered. Elle just sat there with an emotion tickling over her that she should be here. This wasn't her conversation to have.

"I'll leave you two guys to it" she jumped up and tried to head to the door but Angelina grabbed her arm immediately,

"I'll come with you" she cried in a high pitched voice. Elle shook her head but the girls eyes were pleading.

"Angelina technically this isn't any of my business" Elle grimaced sympathetically but the dark haired girls clutch was resilient. No wonder she made such a good chaser.

"Fine I'll stay, you can't run away from this" Elle huffed and turned to her other friend who was still frozen in the doorway.

"I don't understand" Alicia mouthed, "you and Fred"

"No not me and Fred" Angelina mumbled "we're friends that's all... just friends"

"Oh" Elle stood awkwardly in the middle of the room taking turns to glance between the two girls as they stared at each other.

"I didn't know you were..." Alicia began but got cut off before she could finish her sentence,
"Gay?"
"Yeah that"

"Only Elle does, so far" both girls turned to look at Elle who waved sarcastically still feeling as though her presence wasn't needed. With the stares the two girls were giving each other, she doubted they'd notice if she slipped out.

"You could have told me Angie, I wouldn't have judged you"
"But if I told you that... I would end up telling you the other thing and I didn't want to ruin our friendship... guess that ships sailed" Alicia sat down in the bed next to Angelina.

"You could never ruin our friendship Ang" she muttered. Alicia slowly reached out and took Angelina's hand in her own.

"And on that note I'm going to go" Elle stated, the girls seemed to pay no attention as they were too busy looking at each other. The brunette darted out of the room and shut the door softly behind her.

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As she paced into the common room she saw the twins sitting by the fire hunched over a letter. They hadn't noticed her arrival so Elle watched from a distance as they talked privately.

"Fred I don't think this is a good idea"
"He robbed us the slippery bastard it's what he deserves"
"Yes but we should go about this more carefully"
"If we do that then we'll never get our money back" Fred hissed.

"Whatcha doing" Elle called over the two in a playful sing song voice. They jumped high into the air comedically before clutching their hearts in unison.
"Give us a bloody heart attack why don't you" Fred gasped and Elle sauntered over. He pushed the letter under a pile of books on the table and Elle frowned.

"Why you being secretive" she muttered. The two gave each other a quick glance before turning back to the brunette who plastered a fake sweet smile onto her face.

"Secretive?"
"Us?"
"Never?"

Elle lunged at the books as fast as she could. Fred grabbed them but the letter flew into the air like a feather from the momentum.
"GRAB IT GEORGE" Fred yelled but before he could Elle had snatched it out of the air.

She felt George's arms wrap around her waist as he tried to pull the letter off her,
"STOP IT" she yelled and promptly George dropped her to the ground,
"For god sake you two" she moaned before opening the letter.

She read the contents with a flurry of her eyes before looking back up to the boys like a disappointed teacher,
"You're still trying to blackmail Ludo"
"He. robbed. us" Fred stated plainly "what else can we do?"

"Not bet all your money away" Elle shrugged as she jumped to her feat.
"We won that bet fair and square and he knows it"
"Even threw in a fake wand" George muttered sadly.

Elle crumpled up the letter and tossed the ball into the fire. Fred jumped forward as though he was going to rescue it but thought better of it as the paper erupted into flames and began to blacken.
"I can just write another one" he mumbled quietly.

"Why don't you just go talk to him, he's still at the school isn't he?" The boys shrugged,
"I think so but we tried being reasonable and it didn't work" Elle wished that she could think of a way to get the twins money back without resorting to blackmail. After all she knew Ludo deserved it but she also knew the twins would probably end up winding into more trouble than they deserved.

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The next few weeks dragged by as everyone awaited the second trail of the triwizard tournament. After the fiasco with the egg in the Gryffindor common room, it seemed Harry was no closer to solving the puzzle.

Elle herself wasn't still on team Diggory however she couldn't help but root on Harry as well. After all he was in her house. She didn't condem the wearing of the Potter stinks badges and made sure to charm as many as she could so they read 'the person wearing this stinks' it wasn't much but she was quite proud of herself.

The brunette hadn't heard the rest of the happening between her two best friends (Alicia and Angelina) but she didn't feel the need to ask. They deserved privacy after all, even though Elle had been dragged in to it and made to stand awkwardly in the middle of their discussion.

She'd seen them of course, they were definitely still friends however she suspected something else was going on. They didn't make it obvious but Elle had caught them holding hands and staring at each other affectionately in the common room before Elle barged in.

However relationships weren't working out for everyone. In the case of Elle and George that is. She'd practically forgotten that she was in a 'relationship' as they were doing such a good job of hiding it.

George had come up with excuse after excuse of reasons why he shouldn't tell Fred at this specific time.

"Angelina just rejected him"

"He just failed his tester exam"

"He forgot his homework today"

"Our prank backfired"

"Bagman still hasn't given us our money"

Elle wasn't known to be patient but despite that she'd done her best to respect his hard George was finding it to tell his brother that he like Elle in a more than friendly way.

She knew the excuses were just that. Excuses. But there was nothing she could say or do to shift George's mind that if he was to tell Fred something wouldn't go horribly wrong.

"This has never happened before, I want to do it right"

He must have repeated that to her countless times. The brunette knew not to argue. After all it's not like there was much to do if Fred did know, Hogwarts wasn't exactly dating central.

Nevertheless she hoped George would pluck up the courage to tell him soon, maybe then she could talk excitedly about it to her friends. She admired the smile that Lauren and Katie wore when they discussed their relationships and a large part of her was eager to join in.

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